The Pañcatantra is an ancient collection of fables in Sanskrit, estimated to be over 3,000 years old. The item being inscribed is one of its earliest preserved manuscript versions, missing only the first seven pages, housed at the renowned Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in Pune, India. The manuscript’s human, supernatural and animal characters, along with cultural references, provide evidence that the tales originated in South Asia by analyzing various recensions and translations of the Pañcatantra stories, which have proliferated globally since antiquity. Placed within a frame story and composed in a combination of verse and prose, this documentary heritage is an example of the art of storytelling of the subcontinent and a significant contribution to ancient world literature. It is believed that the pundit Vishnusharma composed the Pañcatantra for unruly sons of a king who was anxious to educate them. The manuscript reveals that it is a textbook of artha ‘worldly wisdom’ or niti  ‘polity’, which is believed to be one of the three objects of human accomplishment (the other two being dharma ‘religion or morally proper conduct’ and kama ‘love’), rather than being merely a book of ‘moral stories’, as adaptations and abridged versions often project it to be.

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The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute’s Manuscript of the Sahṛdayāloka with Locana is one of the remarkable manuscripts noticed by G. Bühler while travelling in search of Sanskrit manuscripts in the year 1875 in Kashmir. The manuscript contains two texts namely the Sahṛdayāloka and the Locana, which are the seminal texts of Indian Poetics. The Sahṛdayāloka is a tour de force of Rājānaka Ānandavardhana who lived in Kashmir in the latter half of the ninth century C.E. The Locana — an explanatory text of the Sahṛdayāloka — was composed by Abhinavagupta, another thinker, art-critic and theatre-theorist of the tenth century C.E. The Sahṛdayāloka of Ānandavardhana is an epoch-making text, which focuses on dhvani (evoked meaning) as the inner secret of poetry for the first time in the history of Indian Poetics. This new feature led to a re-examination and re-definition of the various components of poetry. This dhvani theory, although highly influential, had been criticized by many thinkers of that time, but it was Abhinavagupta who through his Locana commentary defended dhvani and established it on a wider canvas. The manuscript of the Sahṛdayāloka with Locana is undoubtedly an important document having had a profound influence on subsequent thinkers of India and beyond.

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The Rāmacaritamānasa, composed by the renowned poet-saint Goswami Tulsīdāsa, is a poetic retelling of the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Deeply rooted in the bhakti (devotional) tradition, the Rāmacaritamānasa has been widely regarded as a seminal work of spirituality and moral idealism in India and the surrounding region. Tulsīdāsa’s work played a crucial role in legitimizing and disseminating the Ramayana narrative through the medium of manuscripts, which were diligently copied and preserved by various Sanskrit scholars, royalty, and devoted followers of Lord Rama over the centuries. The poet himself provides the date of composition, stating that he completed the Rāmacaritamānasa in 1574 C.E. during the Navaratri festival in Ayodhya. At the core of the Rāmacaritamānasa is the narrative of Lord Rama, the seventh avatar of the divine preserver, Vishnu. According to Tulsīdāsa, the story was originally narrated by Lord Shiva to his consort, Parvati, before being passed down to the poet through his spiritual mentor, Naharidas. The

Rāmacaritamānasa is widely known as “Tulsikrit Rāmacaritamānasa,” highlighting the poet’s seminal contribution to this enduring literary and spiritual legacy. The nominated illustrated manuscripts of the Rāmacaritamānasa are truly exceptional, containing over 200 exquisitely detailed miniature paintings, making them unique and rare treasures.

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